89. Barbecued Chicken (With Plum Baste)

Today I’m sharing with you a DiS card that I made–well, I don’t know how long ago it was! Here is an action shot of Rick grilling the chicken:

Rick does have 2 arms. I promise.

The grass is green and we’re grilling, sooooo, it was over the summer. THE SUMMER!!!!

I don’t remember much about this dinner (although I did have a beast of a time finding canned plums. I actually called around to grocery stores). So, instead I’ll tell you a story from my holiday break back in December (no, I’m totally not far behind with this shit! Ha!)…

So, while I was at home, my parents received a lot of Christmas cards. But a card from one of my dad’s college friends was of particular interest. It was all holy n’at:

It didn’t look like this, but let’s imagine that it did

The inside was full of Catholic stuff–Jesus is the Reason for the Season, bible verse, etc., etc. Because this dude and his fam are all types of Catholic (not that there’s anything wrong with that…but just wait for it…)

At the bottom of the card there was a hand-written P.S.:

“We’d love to know how Maria is!”

After reading the card:

My mum: Who the fuck is Maria?

She hands me the card and I read it.

Me: Oh my gawd…they don’t know my name.

Mum: What?

Me: They TOTALLY don’t know my name! That’s me. I’m Maria!

Mum: What?!?! Noooooo. Hm——–OMG, they totally DON’T know your name!

Gentle reader, you may ask, why does it matter if they know my name…?

…because this old college friend of my dad’s is my godfather.

Yessiree–the totally Catholic dude, with the totally all-about-the-bible-verses-in-the-Christmas card, forgot the name of his own goddaughter!

Soooooo…mum and I waited for my dad to get home; and we showed him the card, without any lead in.

He reads it.

Dad: Maria? Well, they must have put the wrong card in our envelope.

Me: NO! They don’t know my name. They have no idea who I am. I’ve never met him! Well–I assume that he was at my baptism, but, like, whatever–still! No. Clue.

We had to know what the deal was with this, so my mum FB messaged his wife the next day:

What a beautiful Christmas card! But I have to ask…who is Maria?

The response was something like, my husband’s goddaughter! That’s not her name? We’ve been praying for Maria for years!

So, you know what this means, darlings?

This means that there is some random Maria chick out there who has been benefiting from 37 years of praying for my well-being and my soul.

I mean, I could have used those happy thoughts. For serious. I could have won the lotto by now. Or have been a teen model!

This might be one of my top-5 movie quotes most used in casual conversations

Thanks for nothing, completely absent, very-Catholic goddfather, and your family. Just for that you owe me communion, confirmation, and high school graduation checks.

Pay-Pal also works 🙂

Kittens, the moral of the story is this: if you have children, make the godparents family members. There is less of a chance that they won’t forget your child’s name. Or their very existence.

Or at least I’d hope so.

Here’s the finished dinner:

I vaguely remember it being good. I dunno.

In closing, I have a bit of an announcement…the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF DiS! is fast approaching!

I followed a link about retro food and am delighted to end up here … I have a Dinner Is Served set that I’ve loved since I was a young child and my mother started a set for me after she completed her own. We still use the DIS recipes for Swiss Steak, lamb shanks, and Swedish meatballs … which we first had when I convinced my mother to serve it at my First Communion party.

You’re making me want to try new recipes from it. Maybe I finally will make Janssen’s temptation!

le Duff is a steamed pudding with tinned plums in it-there’s a good recipe in the 50’s Betty Crocker cookbook. It looks terrible when it comes out of the steamer (because let’s face it, tinned plums are basically stewed prunes) but it tastes lovely.